


In a Nutshell

by Lexigent



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>zeen asked for something from Hamlet and Horatio's university days, and stated that they like AUs, so I tried my hand at combining these things. zeen, I hope you like it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Nutshell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



Horatio is halfway across the court on his way to breakfast when he realises he’s left last night’s essay on his desk. He curses under his breath and runs back, holding his cap tightly in his hands and nearly falls over a couple of undergraduates throwing their gowns on as they walk to hall. 

Given that he was up until the small hours for one reason and another (more of another, to be fair), he’s impressed with himself just for being upright at this time. The number of heads in hall this morning tells him how many of his fellow students are not that self-disciplined. Then again, aristocrats’ sons and scholars do not get measured with the same standard.

He sits down to breakfast and notes with no small amount of surprise that one of last night’s revellers – the principal among them, one might say, as the revels in question took place in his rooms, right across from Horatio’s – is up despite his nightly exploits. His name is Hamlet, and even if Horatio didn't live right ten feet from his oak, he would know his name - everyone in college does. It's not unusual for him to entertain his friends in his rooms after the porter has made his last rounds. What is unusual is that he’s on his own now. Usually he’s accompanied by two undergraduates, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who seem to spend most of their time throwing bread rolls at each other, and who are the main reason Horatio has never actually spoken to Hamlet.

He wears the black rings under his eyes and the slightly weary expression with the same idiotic pride as fencers their gashes. There’s no embarrassment or shame on his face as he nods to Horatio in recognition over the rim of his coffee cup. Horatio refills his own, thinking _There’s not enough coffee in the world, and yet it’s only Tuesday_.

____________

Keeping on the same staircase as the most popular man in college means one sees and hears rather more of him than would otherwise be the case, at least if one is continually excluded from his parties. Unfortunately, it also means one sees a great deal of his friends, and overhears much of their nightly antics, whether one wants to or not.  
Horatio reckons that, had he a more unscrupulous turn of mind, he could get the lot of them sent down. They would be replaced by another, probably equally bad, lot, though, so there wouldn’t be much point. 

He doesn’t mind staying long hours at the library, fitting his life into the cracks of theirs – of Hamlet’s. Yet seeing the undergraduates writing each other’s essays half the time, and partying the other, he does wonder if this institution actually produces men of character as it says it should, or merely makes public school boys into overgrown public school boys with a taste in wine and women (or indeed, wine and their fellow students).

____________

Things come to a head on the Friday night, after Horatio gets in from a session with his tutor that went less than well. Even his constitution, used as it is to long hours and little sleep, has its limits, and apparently having three bad nights in a row is as much as it can take before other people notice.

So, when he hears the all too familiar noises of drunken merriment from a staircase away, he turns to Hamlet's door, not his, and knocks. He's not sure what he'll say, but he ventures asking for a little peace is not too much.

It's not Hamlet who gets the door, it's Rosencrantz. He looks Horatio up and down out of glazed eyes, without a spark of recognition. He turns his head and shouts for Hamlet, then looks back at Horatio.

"Sorry, what's your—"

He never gets to finish the sentence. Instead he doubles over, quicker than Horatio can step back, and is violently sick over his shoes. Hamlet appears behind him in the doorframe, in shirtsleeves and with his hair tousled. He looks from one to the other, picks Rosencrantz up by his collar and maneuvres him out of sight.

"I'll get the servant in the morning. Sorry about your shoes."

Horatio steps back.

"Maybe it's time you disbanded this party."

"Yes, maybe." Horatio thinks Hamlet looks much soberer than his companion, but then again, that isn't hard. 

The door closes in his face and he is left to clean his shoes as best he can. At least, there is no further noise tonight.

Horatio sighs when he climbs in between the sheets and hopes he won't have to ruin further pieces of his attire for a quiet night.

____________

Horatio’s not sure what he’d expected – maybe a card at the end of term, or a handshake in the doorway. Thanks for putting up with us lot, that sort of thing.  
What he hadn’t expected was finding Hamlet knocking on his door with a bottle of claret in hand and apologies on his lips.  
“We must have been a frightful lot of trouble, old chap,” he says and walks past Horatio before Horatio can even agree.  
He installs himself on Horatio’s sofa in front of the fireplace, uncorks the bottle with practised ease, and fills two cups.

“I really must apologise for my friends,” Hamlet says. “Not all of them can hold their wine, you see.”

“I do,” he says after his first sip of wine. It’s good claret, the stuff that will go straight to his head if he’s not careful.

“Noblesse oblige, I suppose. I’d rather not, to be perfectly honest, but one doesn’t seem to have much choice. I let them drink my wine, in return they leave me in peace the rest of the time.”

He puts his cup down and lights a cigarette, looking up at Horatio over the flame of his match. 

Horatio catches his eye. “And do you expect me to leave you in peace for the rest of term in exchange for this?”

Hamlet laughs, a cloud of smoke curling out of his mouth.

“You’re a scholar. You wouldn’t know how not to leave me in peace if you tried.”

 _Well, in that case_ , thinks Horatio, and downs his cup.

______________________

Things change after this, if only a little. It's not that Hamlet stops entertaining his friends, or that they are any less annoying, but now he lets Horatio know when they are likely to be over. He does invite him once, but Horatio declines, claiming a prior engagement. He's fine in this space he has carved out for himself around Hamlet, but he has no interest in letting it intersect with theirs.

Hamlet knows no such boundaries, and starts sitting near Horatio when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are late for meals, or don't show up at all.

______________________

By the last week of term, Hamlet leaves his gown and cap in Horatio's rooms by way of habit. He also keeps leaving his wallet and cigarette case, which Horatio finds endearing, given that he has never taken anything out of either, as Hamlet probably expected. He won't be bought; at this point, he doesn't need to.

So when Hamlet stumbles through the door one night, bleeding from cuts to his lip and eyebrow, Horatio only waits for him to settle and steady himself with drink.  
“Don’t ever marry an aristocrat, Horatio,” he says around a cigarette, “we’re nothing but trouble.” He holds out another cigarette for Horatio. Horatio nods and Hamlet lights it on his. They take a couple drags in silence.

“You’d think the brightest minds of the country would know that leaving someone in peace means not writing to his parents informing them of his every move, wouldn’t you?”  
Horatio raises an eyebrow. 

“Rosencrantz?”

Hamlet sighs. “Guildenstern, actually. I could get the two of them sent down but that would mean stooping to their level. What people do behind closed doors is no one’s business, far as I’m concerned.”

He puts down his cigarette and sighs. “How do you stand us, Horatio?”

Horatio smiles. “Individually, you’re not so bad.”

He sits on the sofa beside Hamlet and they smoke in silence.

It’s the twitch in Hamlet’s lip that does it, that curl of his top lip that reopens the cut and stains his lips red; half fascinating, half frightening, all invitation. He opens his own mouth and presses his lips against Hamlet’s, tasting the hint of metal underneath the wine.

Hamlet breaks the kiss and looks at him, and Horatio wonders how he never realised that it's impossible to carve a niche in negative space, that you can't live in the shadow once you get this close to the light.

So he kisses Hamlet again, sliding his tongue along the edges of the cut, and thinks that maybe, there is another way to live after all.


End file.
